NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover team lives their lives on Martian time, with days that are more than half-an-hour longer than standard Earth days. That means, they have to reset their alarm clocks every day.

“All of the operators (engineers, scientists, drivers, planners) live on Mars time, by shifting the schedule +40 minutes each day,” team member Magdy Bareh told the Reddit community on Thursday morning. “This is order to maximize the efficiency of each sol [Martian day].”

“It is a bit painful…we re-program our alarm clocks every day.”

The team noted that it was important to maximize the Martian days because Curiosity doesn’t have any lights and uses each night to recharge its batteries.

[np-related]

The way that Martian time is measured works similarly to “normal” Earth time: There are 24 hours in a day, 60 minutes in an hour, 60 seconds in a minute. However, each second takes longer than an Earth second.

How to deal with Martian time has long been a topic of discussion among scientists and science fiction enthusiasts. In his 1993 novel Red Mars, author Kim Stanley Robinson suggested that a Martian day should consist of 24 regular Earth hours made up of standard minutes and seconds with an additional 40 minutes of blank time after midnight when clocks stopped running.

The team answered many more questions during the Reddit chat as well.

Brian van der Brug/AFP/GettyImages

When asked why the rover had what many felt was ancient computer processing chips. The team explained the reasoning in three parts.

“Our current smarthphones are more powerful.” Avionics System Engineer, Jonny Grinblat told Reddit. “First of all, the computer was selected about 8 years ago, so we have the latest and greatest space certified parts that existed then.

“Second of all, it was the most rubost and proven space grade processor at that time. Thirdly, in order to make a processor radiation hardened it requires lots of tricks on the silicon that is not conducive to making it fast. Given that, it does not run any GUIs [Graphic User Interface] and can just focus on raw programming, and actually gets a lot done. All of the programming is done in [the computer language] C, and our toolchain is very similar to programming on any platform.”

The computer was selected about 8 years ago, so we have the latest and greatest space certified parts that existed then

The team also assured the chat that they would release as much data as possible if they found evidence of alien life.

“Every science hypothesis is vetted among the team and we would want to make sure we were absolutely certain it was life/fossils/etc. before releasing it to the public,” Keri Bean, Mastcam uplink lead/environmental science theme group lead, told the chat. “But we absolutely would release this information, once we had sufficient evidence and it was agreed upon among the science teams! We follow this procedure for all of our interesting finds.”

When asked about the next step after Mars, a possible mission to Jupiter’s moon Europa (which likely has an Ocean trapped under a surface of ice), the team seemed surprisingly upbeat, despite the challenges sounding fairly crazy.

“Getting into into the ocean is one tricky part. I think some folks have done some experiments with ROVs [remotely operated vehicles] that melt their way down through ice, but we’ve got some work to do,” Scott McCloskey, the­ Turret Rover Planner, said. “Jupiter also has a pretty challenging radiation environment and we’ll have to come up with some way to relay information from the Earth to the ROV. None of these issues seems to be insurmountable.”

The team was also questioned about their newfound fame, specifically the fact that Flight Director Bobak “Mohawk Guy” Ferdowsi had become an Internet meme. The aformentioned Mohawk Guy said he took it in stride and sometimes gets creative on his own.

“Well actually [Rob Zimmerman – Power/Pyro Systems Engineer] and I sometimes make memes about things on the project,” Ferdowsi told the chat.

NASA showed off a long-distance portrait of its Curiosity rover in the expansive Gale Crater on Tuesday. It’s part of the growing catalogue of photos from the Mars mission, but among the first to put the nuclear-powered mobile lab in context of its vast surroundings.

Scientists estimate it will take Curiosity a year to travel from its current location to its ultimate destination at Mount Sharp, the edge of which is shown at the bottom of the new photo.

The photo was taken from orbit by NASA’s High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE). It shows the area surrounding Curiosity’s landing site, pictured above, as well as the stretch of terrain to the rover’s south, shown to the right and below.

The colours have been enhanced to emphasize differences in the terrain and the impact site. The dark blue regions to the south show the area close to Mount Sharp.

Curiosity is still undergoing a regimen of checks and procedures to prepare for its journey. In the meantime, scientists are evaluating driving routes the rover may take on its way to a Martian mountain, which rises from the centre of the crater.

Officials said Tuesday that Curiosity has successfully completed an upgrade to its computers.

The previous installation was geared entirely toward the complex tasks of atmospheric entry, descent and landing that brought the mobile science lab to a historic touchdown on the floor of a vast, ancient impact basin called Gale Crater last week.

Curiosity was born to drive. This software includes the capability for Curiosity to really go out and stretch her wheels

But, since the rover’s on-board memory is extremely limited, scientists had clear out the old system in favour of ground-specific programming.

It’s designed to let NASA engineers safely drive the rover, operate its robot arm, use its power drill, collect samples, sweep away dust and perform other functions as it goes about its science mission.

“Curiosity was born to drive. This software includes the capability for Curiosity to really go out and stretch her wheels,” Benjamin Cichy, the rover’s senior software and systems engineer, told reporters on Friday at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory near Los Angeles.

All operations were suspended during the upgrade.

Now that it’s complete, engineers plan to have Curiosity move its wheels and take a short test drive in several days, but it will take a month to complete all checkups before the six-wheel rover can begin real driving.

What’s next?

The nuclear-powered, six-wheel Curiosity is on a quest to learn whether the Martian environment could have been favourable for microbial life. Before it can drive, it has to slog through weeks of health checkups. Since it’s the most complex spacecraft ever sent to the red planet, engineers want to make sure it’s in tip-top shape before they hand over the keys to scientists. It already has done a cursory check of its 10 science tools, but more tests are needed. This weekend, its computers get a software update — a process that will last several days.

When can we watch a movie of the touchdown?

The footage is recorded and stored on board Curiosity and will be downloaded as time allows. It sent back a low-quality video and several high-resolution frames that captured the last few minutes of the descent, providing a sense of a spacecraft landing on another planet. In the video, the protective heat shield pops off and tumbles away. It ends with billowing plumes of dust as Curiosity was safely delivered to the surface.

What are the first impressions of Gale Crater?

The mission’s chief scientist John Grotzinger said it was like staring at California’s Mojave Desert. The landing site is pebbly with sand dunes nearby and mountains off in the distance. A curtain of haze hung over the site. Curiosity’s destination is Mount Sharp, a 4.8-kilometre-high mountain rising from the centre of the crater floor near the equator. Observations from space reveal the base of the mountain shows signs of past water — a good place to hunt for the chemical ingredients of life.

How did last Sunday’s landing go?

Curiosity’s performance was pretty much on target with expectations. Because it weighed nearly 900 kilograms, it had to be gently lowered to the surface — a routine NASA had never tried before. A preliminary reconstruction indicates it landed 1 kilometre downrange from the bull’s-eye.

How many rovers are now on Mars?

Curiosity joins the long-running Opportunity, which has been exploring craters in Mars’ southern hemisphere since 2004. Opportunity’s twin, Spirit, fell silent in 2010 after getting stuck in a sand trap. Curiosity’s prime mission lasts two years.

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